This invention relates in general to electronic transfer of funds and in particular to the use of automated telephone billing systems to provide a secure payment for goods and services.
In recent years there has been a proliferation of catalogs being distributed via mail to facilitate the convenience of home shopping. The catalogs usually include both a toll free number and an internet address for an internet store. The customer can simply telephone or contact the company via the internet from his home and order advertised goods and/or services. Usually the telephone lines are manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week while the internet provides similar access. Such continuous availability has proven very popular, allowing shopping from home at any time with the products delivered directly to the purchaser's residence. Additionally, search engines can provide access to internet stores for providers of goods and services without the need of catalogs.
In order to complete telephonic and internet purchases, it is necessary to provide payment for the products being purchased. With the increased tempo provided by use of the telephone or internet to purchase products, it would be cumbersome and time consuming to be required to mail a personal check as payment to the provider of the product. The use of a personal check for payment would not only delay shipment of the product while awaiting receipt and subsequent clearance of the check, but would also require more handling of paper, increasing the costs of the provider. Accordingly, payment is typically made by the purchaser charging the cost of the purchase to a credit card.
Thus, inherent with use of the telephone or internet to purchase goods and services is the provision of personal financial information over the internet to the provider of goods and services. Typically, the information includes a credit card account number for the purchaser. The credit card account number may or may not encrypted during transmission. When the account number is not encrypted, there is a potential for the account number to be obtained by an unauthorized person who could then use the account for their purposes. Additionally, even when the account number is encrypted, there are other valid concerns when personal financial information is provided to another party. First, the purchaser does not know that the receiver of the information, that is the provider, is actually trustworthy. Thus, there is a concern that the provider may misuse the financial information. Second, if the information is misused, there is a concern that there is not a limit upon the magnitude of the purchaser's losses. Such losses include not only the actual financial loss, but also cost the purchaser in terms of time, reputation and repeated occurrences. Finally, there is a concern as to whether the provider will adequately protect the received financial information. Unfortunately, it has been determined that some of the largest credit card fraud rings operate by collecting poorly protected customer and accounts receivable databases from the internet. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method for procuring goods and services over the internet that separates the purchaser's financial information and records from provider access.